A safe, comfortable environment for your baby—that’s your primary goal when building a nursery. Getting there involves a little planning, but with the right tools you’ll create a great place for you to care for and spend time with your baby.
Window treatments are a good place to start when planning your baby’s nursery. Perhaps no other element is more important when it comes to achieving the ideal conditions for sleep. Bali offers blinds, shades, shutters, and drapery in hundreds of fabrics in both cordless and motorized shades (cordless and motorized window treatments eliminate the need for cords, which can cause entanglement hazards).
You’ll find the room darkening and blackout fabrics you’ll need to create the right amount of darkness for your new baby so they can get quality sleep. Some options, including cellular shades and custom drapery, provide significant insulation to help keep your nursery more comfortable. And with the wide range of available options, you’ll have no trouble finding window treatments that fit your style and budget—without sacrificing safety or performance. Best of all, Bali makes all its products for DIY, and that means installation is straightforward and the instructions are clear and easy to understand.
Crafting the Perfect Nursery: Safety, Style, and Sleep
As a new parent, the hardest thing about creating a nursery is that so much of what you’re doing is entirely new. Luckily, the requirements for a simple, safe nursery are quite straightforward: create a safe place and make it conducive to sleep. That’s it. If you want the nursery to be stylish, that’s easy to do, too. We’re going to go over all these things in this article.
But before we start, let’s try to answer a question many people have.
"Is It Safe to Put Curtains in a Nursery?"—Prioritizing Child Safety
There’s some disagreement about putting curtains in a nursery. It is clear that curtains are often used in nurseries—in fact, they are actually one of the most popular window treatments for nurseries. The argument against them is that children could pull the curtains down on themselves. Most people who use curtains in their nurseries reduce this risk by securely fastening brackets, curtain rods, and hardware. Curtains and drapery of any kind should not be placed within reach of a crib or bed, and dangling decorations and other embellishments that could be swallowed should not be used. Following these guidelines, you can install drapery in your nursery with peace of mind.
That’s the complicated answer to the question. The simple answer is that drapery is a safe option because it doesn’t have control cords or exposed cords of any kind. Cords can cause entanglement, which could lead to strangulation. But if you have concerns about using drapery, you should consider one of the many cordless shade products available today.
Fortunately, getting rid of cords is easy—just purchase cordless shades or smart shades (motorized). You’ll lift and lower your shades with just a gentle lift or pull, or at the touch of a button or tap of a screen.
What is the Best Window Treatment for a Nursery?
If there’s a right answer to this question, it would have to be cellular shades.
Why cellular shades? They’re made with a unique fabric that has chambers that capture air and create an insulating layer to protect you against heat, cold, and sound. Cellular shades are available in room darkening and blackout fabrics, and that means they can create an outstanding sleep environment for your baby.
Optimizing for Baby's Sleep: Light & Temperature Control
Every baby is different, but there are some basic guidelines for creating the optimal environment for a sleeping baby. The room should be relatively dark—as dark as your baby needs. The temperature in the room should be comfortable or on the cool side. And the room should be relatively quiet.
Blackout shades, precise temperature controls, sound dampening materials, and the ability to carefully control all these things is relatively new. For the most part, for a few thousand years, parents did their best to provide a comfortable environment for their sleeping babies—and most of the time it was an imperfect job—but it worked. So, do not fret if you cannot create a sensory-deprivation-sleep-cocoon for your child. It certainly isn’t needed—and it’s generally not feasible. Your baby might be able to sleep in a slightly sunny room with traffic whizzing past outside the window. Or your child might need a quiet, dark, relatively cool room. In rare instances, a child needs full blackout window treatments. Room darkening shades are a good compromise and work for most babies. But blackout options are available that can create a very dark room—even in the daytime (which makes them popular with people who work night shifts or need to sleep during the day). If you demand the darkest possible room, there are even ways to block the smallest amount of light from poking through the sides of your shades.
Temperature isn’t controlled by your window treatments, but good insulating cellular shades, custom drapery, or tailored Roman shades can insulate against heat and cold so your home’s heating and cooling system can maintain the right temperature in the nursery. That right temperature depends on the baby. Babies and adults alike seem to benefit from a cooler room when they’re trying to fall asleep and stay asleep. But that’s not always the case. What’s important is that your heating and cooling system can maintain that temperature in the nursery without outside heat, cold, or drafts affecting that temperature. And that’s where those insulating window treatments come in—and these same window treatments also help to dampen sound.
Creating the Close-to-Perfect Nursery: All the Options
All the window treatments below can be used to create a wonderful nursery for your baby. Every one of the window treatments can provide the light control and privacy necessary for a functional nursery. Each type of window treatment does the job in its own way—and each offers its own unique look. All are effective for creating nurseries conducive to sleep.
Cellular Shades
We’ve already discussed why cellular shades are outstanding in the nursery. Their insulating properties and availability in room darkening or blackout fabrics makes them ideal. But there’s another reason to choose cellular shades: they’re beautiful. The elegant horizontal lines and the way a room darkening shade filters the light bring a touch of elegance to any room, including nurseries.
Roman Shades
Bali Roman Shades can be made from hundreds of different fabrics. Adding a liner to your Roman shade order helps to increase your shade’s light filtering capabilities. Adding a blackout liner gives you maximum light control. Like cellular shades, Roman shades are available as cordless shades or smart shades. They’re a good choice if you’re looking to match your shades to your walls or floor coverings.
Window Blinds
Bali offers the full range of blinds, including real wood blinds, faux wood blinds, aluminum blinds, and vinyl blinds. Blinds can be purchased cordless—and that means a safer room for your baby and pets. Wood blinds are classic—nothing beats the look of real wood. Aluminum and vinyl blinds are quite durable and very affordable. And faux wood blinds are moisture resistant and can be used in even the most humid rooms. Blinds have the advantage of being one of the most adjustable of all window treatments—no window covering offers as many options for light control and privacy. And although you won’t get a blackout level of light control, a set of blinds can produce a dark enough room for quality sleep.
Roller Shades
The simplest of all shades is the roller shade. Pull to close, lift to raise. Available cordless or as a smart shade, a Bali Roller Shade is an ideal solution for any window in your home. In your nursery, it’s a straightforward, simple solution. On top of that, Bali offers dozens of roller shade fabrics, including room darkening and blackout-level options perfect for a nursery.
Are Blinds or Curtains Better for Nursery? (Comparing Your Options)
The simple answer is curtains are a better solution for your nursery than blinds. While curtains offer simple light control, a huge selection of fabrics, and outstanding insulation properties, blinds have their place, too. Window blinds are so easy to adjust—just a slight turn of the tilt-control wand and you can dial in the perfect amount of light. Blinds also offer a clean, modern look—something many homeowners prefer. And since both options are available without cords, you have two very safe options. Let’s look more closely at each option.
Blinds & Shades: Safe, Practical Choices
Blinds have a number of advantages over other window treatments. Firstly, they are a hard window treatment—made from wood, resin, aluminum, and vinyl, they are built to stand up to the rigors of daily use. As hard-material products, blinds are fairly easy to clean—just a quick going over with the upholstery attachment of your vacuum cleaner is enough to keep your window treatments looking good as new.
Shades, while not made of hard materials, also offer excellent light control and can be cleaned with the upholstery attachment of your vacuum cleaner. And because of their huge variety of designs and fabric options, they’re probably a better solution for many people than blinds or curtains.
Curtains: Aesthetic Appeal
Curtains offer some advantages over blinds. The first is insulation: drapery fabric traps air and provides an insulating layer over your window. Drapery also blocks drafts. While not as easy to clean as blinds are, drapery can be vacuumed with an upholstery attachment to reduce the amount of dusty buildup. Curtains can be a good solution in the nursery as long as they are installed out of reach of cribs and beds, do not have any embellishments (which could be swallowed), and have no dangling cords or tiebacks. Curtains in the nursery should also have securely fastened wall brackets, curtain rods, and other hardware.
What to Put in Front of a Window in a Nursery? (Beyond Basic Blinds)
What kind of blinds, shades, shutters, or drapery you choose to install on your windows depends on how you’ll be using the nursery. For nurseries that are used only for sleeping, a cellular shade paired with drapery creates a very dark room that is both quiet and comfortable. For rooms where someone will be sitting with the baby or holding the baby in a rocking chair, some view to the outdoors might be important---and that would mean window blinds, which can be adjusted to the precise amount of light. Putting a changing table in front of the window might be a good use of space, and window blinds or a simple roller shade would both work well here. And any option you choose can be enhanced using a Bali valance or cornice—the finished look is impressive.
Smart Features for Modern Nurseries
Smart shades are ideal for nurseries. They let you lift and lower your shades using only your smartphone or by using a remote control. Using a gateway, you can control your shades when you’re away from home and program your shades to raise and lower automatically. Best of all, Bali motorized shades are easy to install and can be programmed in minutes. Nothing is more convenient than motorized shades.
Why Bali Blinds are the Best Choice for Your Nursery
Why choose Bali? Because Bali has it all: safe, high quality, outstanding window treatments and the product guides and online tools you need to install them perfectly. Bali has been making window treatments for almost a century, and safety has always been a top priority. The cordless and smart shade designs that Bali offers come in hundreds of different fabrics and give you stylish, on-trend options—all custom made to fit your windows.
Create Your Dream Nursery with Bali
You’ve learned about the options and read about the advantages and disadvantages of every type of window treatment. Cellular shades are arguably ideal for any nursery. Roller shades are the simplest to use. And drapery offers ease of use as well as hundreds of fabric options. All of these window treatments are safe choices for a nursery. And any Bali solution you choose will be made for DIY installation and will have online guides or instructional videos to help you accurately measure and properly install your window treatments.
Now you have the knowledge you need to create the perfect nursery for you and your baby, it’s time to start exploring Bali’s full menu of products and make plans to create that safe, comfortable environment for you and your little one.
